Dravid Gets Standing Ovation From Crowd On His Swansong ODI

Cardiff, Sep 16: Veteran India batsman Rahul Dravid was today given a befitting farewell from one-day cricket, with the crowd here at Sofia Gardens getting on their feet as he walked into bat for one last time.

Dravid, who retired from One-Day cricket today, was given a standing ovation when he trudged into the ground in the final match of the series against England, befitting his stature as one of the all time greats in the 50-over format.

A near capacity crowd at the Sophia Gardens rose on their feet as soon as Dravid made his way to the middle after Ajinkya Rahane was out in the 13th over when India were at 52 for one.

The crowd greeted him with placards on which were written ‘we will miss you Dravid, the great ambassador of India' and ‘the only reason we are here is to show gratitude to Rahul'.

Dravid walked into One-Day swansong after an illustrious career spanning 15 years from 1996 and has scored 10,820 runs from 343 matches before today's game. He is the seventh most prolific ODI run-getter in history.

He had announced his ODI retirement before the start of the limited overs series against England after he was surprisingly named in the Indian squad after a hiatus of nearly four years. PTI